S6, Ep 150: Ben Furimsky Returns

Marvin Cash
00:00:03

Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly. On this episode, Ben Frimski returns to the podcast.

Ben updates us on his most recent fishing adventures, takes us behind the scenes of the fly fishing shows, and lets us know what to expect for the 2025 season. I think you're really going to enjoy this one, but before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items.

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Marvin Cash
00:01:37

Well, Ben, welcome back to the Articulate Fly.

Ben Furimsky
00:01:41

Thanks for having me.

Marvin Cash
00:01:42

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. And you know, before we dive into all the show stuff, I bet you have a few recent fishing adventures you can share with our listeners.

Ben Furimsky
00:01:51

Yeah, I actually just got back early yesterday morning about, I don't know, I'd have to say slightly over 24 hours ago. I was just getting home.

Marvin Cash
00:02:01

Yeah, you were down in Argentina, right?

Ben Furimsky
00:02:03

Yeah, yeah, we went for Golden Dorado. So most people when they think Argentina are usually thinking trout.

But we were down there fishing for Golden Dorado and something different for Argentina, and it was a pretty awesome trip with set fly fishing.

Marvin Cash
00:02:18

Yeah, those are good guys. It's kind of funny. I, I fished with them back when they were Andy's drifters, like in 2006 when, like, Gustavo had just started the company.

Ben Furimsky
00:02:28

Right, right. And now they've actually, you know, with. With set, they've merged with two companies. Merged.

And they were actually giving me a little bit of the background on it. And it's the third inner iteration of the company. And they've. They've exhibited with us all along the way.

So the shows are a great place to meet them. And that is one of the reasons we even went with them is everybody is like, oh, those are great guys.

And you know, the really, I would have to say any fishing trip is, you know, always, always fun for a lot of different reasons.

And I tell people one of the benefits of coming to book a trip at the shows is that you get to talk with the people and you can have a great fishing trip with bad fishing and a bad fishing trip with. With great fishing. And the difference is always the people that are around you.

And when you get to talk to the people at the shows and meet them, rather than just, you know, communication online, you. You may even be talking to your guide and be like, this guy is great. You know, I would have a good time fishing with him.

And no matter what it is, you know that you're going to have a good time. And that's what everybody said about the guys with set. So we were excited to go with them.

And they were, you know, the hosting and the food and all the things besides the fishing were highlights.

Marvin Cash
00:03:47

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's an interesting thing. I'm kind of old school that way too.

Like, I would never put a deposit down on a trip without, like, spending time, you know, in person, if possible, but certainly on the phone with the guide or the outfitter.

Ben Furimsky
00:04:00

Sure. I mean, I don't think it's old school. It's just that it's. It's the best way, you know, it's. It's the best way.

I mean, even that's how you make friends in, you know, that. That is how people get to understand that they get along and their humor or whatever it might be and, you know, it might.

Someone that you might have a great trip with could be someone different than me, or it could be, you know, the same. And, you know, there's. There's people that get along with different personalities.

I mean, when I was guiding full time, you know, some of my employers, when I was guiding for them, the outfitters that I guided for the shops, one thing that they would say about me is that they're like, well, I can send anybody with you. It doesn't matter. Their personality or their skill level, you're going to give them a good trip. And then there's other great guides.

It's nothing against their guiding skill level or their abilities, but they may have a certain personality that's going to have a better trip with them. You know, maybe they're a little more gruff, rough around the edges. So, you know, someone that needs pampering might not have a great trip.

And it's nothing against that, that guide or that person, but you need to make sure you match the personalities well. And a good outfitter is going to do that with their guides. And, you know, you can do that yourself when you're looking at that outfitter and that.

I don't think that's old school at all. It's just smart.

Marvin Cash
00:05:27

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, the prices, price tag is pretty high, so I kind of try to put my time in. But you, you also, you got some striper fishing into after the symposium, didn't you?

Ben Furimsky
00:05:37

Oh, yeah, we, we usually go every year.

And it's time when I get to, you know, I'm back in New Jersey for the symposium, so I visit my family that they live two hours away from where the show is. So I go down and, and spend a little time with them and maybe, maybe get Thanksgiving in and get back to my roots in striper fishing.

So we had a, we did a trip right after the show with a couple of the tires and, and did a day in Point Pleasant area and had some good fishing. Fish were being a little fussy that day. There was bait everywhere.

So they had, you know, it was like basically they could just literally open their mouths and have a snack when they wanted to. There was so much bait. So I heard from plenty of fishermen that that day was a particularly challenging day.

But we caught fish and then I got a few more days in myself before heading to Argentina.

Marvin Cash
00:06:33

Yeah, but you can't always catch the COVID picture for, for the Edison webpage every time you go out.

Ben Furimsky
00:06:39

Right, right, exactly.

Marvin Cash
00:06:42

Yeah. And, you know, so it's kind of, kind of funny.

We're heading into the holiday season and so, you know, anglers are like, hey, we're going to go to fly fishing shows in early 2025.

But I think people don't realize that, you know, for you, it's, it's pretty much a full year thing to put on a show and you're even planning probably for 2027 at this point. Can you give folks a little bit of a feel for, you know, what your year looks like?

Ben Furimsky
00:07:04

Yeah, I Mean, I'm even negotiating schedules right now for 2028 as far as facilities. So that's usually the first thing that I'm working on. And that's like. That can be years out. And you know, sometimes it's.

It can be where facilities don't take contracts, but they'll put it in hold and then know I have dates on hold. And then when they, when it opens up to receive contracts, I'm doing that. So it's kind of a timely process.

And you know, a challenge that I've been facing that's literally added months of work to my schedule is once we lost our facility in Denver during COVID and moved to the Gaylord, our new facility, they're. They're challenged to get consistent dates. They won't.

They basically won't give me the same weekend, which means that I may have to go back and renegotiate other contracts and work out a schedule. And so that's, that's really stressful in the long term.

Yeah, after, after we get those done, then it's, you know, working on individual contracts and getting, getting exhibitors. So we'll start. And I'm starting to work on the contract that we send to our exhibitors now so we can have that provided by next month.

So when we start the shows, exhibitors will have a contract and schedule available for the 2026 states. And then we'll start receiving contracts, you know, as early as that's out, like in January for, for the following year.

So the season literally, like, you know, our work schedule overlaps from as we're producing and going through the actual events live for one year, we're starting to get contracts and make sales for our exhibitors for the next year.

And you know, that's always, always a challenge, you know, as far as like people's, you know, budget schedules and things like that, there's things that we got to work with and it's different. Schedules were like some of the big corporate companies and versus small individual ones.

And you know, one might have plenty of funds, but they have a.

They got to wait till their budget comes out and then another one may, you know, not have any money right then because it's, you know, it's a small little company and they're in the downtime on their season, but the shows are vital to them. So it, you know, it takes. Takes time to line that stuff up. And you know, and in fact, that.

That's been a critical factor that we're still recovering from since COVID as far as Getting timely contracts in because that, that affects the next step which is putting out schedules and lining up speakers and celebrities because some of them may coordinate with, you know, pro staffs and they're waiting to find out if their companies are going to be there that you know.

So we need to, we try to use celebrities that may work with our exhibitors because that helps everybody and, and completes what I call like sort of, you know, their marketing circle. I've got their speakers, you know, and then it drives people back to their booth to ask questions.

They make more sales and you know, it helps everybody work out a more successful event. And you know, and then after that we work on destination theater and authors booth schedules and things like that.

So it's a year long process full time. A lot of people think like, oh, you know, this time of year usually I get it in like sort of novemb, like oh, I bet you're starting to get busy.

And I'm like, yeah, we're for next year.

Marvin Cash
00:10:51

Yeah. But you know, the good news is, you know, you've got a great team of people that help you kind of behind the scenes.

You want to give a shout out to some of those folks that maybe people may not know but are kind of critical to, you know, making the fly fishing shows a success every year.

Ben Furimsky
00:11:06

Well, yeah, I mean we actually have a small staff. I mean I've got basically three people that work full time.

Rob Parkins was new with us last year, so he's still, you know, learning stuff with, with something like we do that has like, as I just explained, it's a multi year process.

At times it could take a couple of years till someone's sort of quote unquote trained and you know, able to go through stuff pretty, pretty seamlessly.

So he came on last year and is working with us in a bunch of stuff and is, has definitely been a huge help on site having someone else that can be responsible for, you know, putting out fires and working out problems with exhibitors and booths and things like that that happen during setup. Emily Mowry works with us doing our social media and she runs the front office.

You know, she's, you know, for this year she was out for a bit of time because I'm not sure if you're aware or your listeners, but in one of the hurricanes that hit Florida, she wasn't even in path of the hurricane. But there, you know, often with hurricanes there can be outlier tornadoes and a tornado hit her street and ripped the roof off of her house.

So she's Been homeless for, you know, now they're living in an RV they just purchased for temporary housing.

But she, she was homeless for a little while and of course we weren't expecting her to be on top of, top of work and dealing with her life because it was turned, turned upside down. I mean, she's still trying to get insurance coverage and that was what one were those hurricanes in October.

So I mean, you know, it's, it's a nightmare dealing with insurance for that kind of stuff.

So we started to go fund me, you can look that up for, and pitch in some funds to help her out because she's, she's, you know, been with us for decades and you know, a longtime staff member, Jen Barkman runs our office at home. And then Amy Barkman works part time with us. She's her sister in law and you know, does works in the office as well.

So those two are critical to some of the other, you know, contract processing and fly tires and you know, just the stuff that happens in the office behind this, behind the scenes and taking care of paperwork. So yeah, it's a small staff.

I mean like I will talk to some, some friends that just happen to work in, in the event world, in the corporate world and they may put on an event that for whatever big company it is that is the size of one of my events or smaller and they will have a team of 10 for that one single event. So they can't even believe that we're able to produce seven events with four people.

And you know, that's just the difference between like, you know, the corporate money that's that they have and us trying to run a small business.

So it's, you know, it's a lot, a lot of work and, and that's the reason why there's basically nobody, there's like one other person that does a few shows in the country in our industry. So you know, people come and go all the time and there's lots of wonderful smaller events.

But as far as like the scale that we do that there's a reason why no one else does it. It's, it's a lot harder than people realize.

Marvin Cash
00:14:44

Yeah, absolutely. And I imagine, you know, Paul's still helping you too, right? With kind of set up on locations and things like that, right?

Ben Furimsky
00:14:50

Yeah, yeah. Paul's our shipper and he takes care of all that stuff.

And then he does sort of a, he's in charge of some AV stuff and in charge of setting up our pawns at the event.

So he's kind of A, you know, independent guy, but he works with us through the events and takes care of all the shipping for us as well as exhibitors, independently.

And, you know, that's a, that is a critical role though, because the shipping, you know what, what I tell people is he takes away the stress because we're all in it together.

If you're shipping with them, he may or may not save you money, but at the very least, you know, you, you, if you ship with him, he, he takes care of worrying about tracking your shipment and finding out that you are going from, you know, Boston to New Jersey and your booth sitting somewhere in Texas because they screwed up shipping. And then they're like, oh, well, we'll get it to you on Monday. Don't worry about it. You're like, you don't understand.

I don't need it on Monday, I need it Thursday. If I get it on Monday, I miss the whole event. And, you know, I've dealt with that myself because I'm, I'm also a vendor at the shows.

I, I own a separate. My, you know, my side hustle is the Angling Bookstore and I exhibit at the shows and I've run into that myself.

So it's, you know, that's hugely stressful when, you know, a shipping error happens. When you're dealing with a three day event, you know, you can't get your stuff on Monday.

It's not like, okay, well, you know, your Christmas gift or your birthday gift's gonna be a little late. Sorry about that. It's, it's your livelihood that depends on this weekend. So that, that takes a lot of stress out.

Marvin Cash
00:16:35

Yeah, it's interesting too. Cause I think probably most of the consumers don't know. It's almost like you've got like a, a mini rock tour going on. Right.

Cause you basically have a tractor trailer that, you know, for people that are doing. Yeah. I mean, you've got people doing multiple shows.

What happens is they get their stuff to the first show and then you and Paul help them move it around.

And so literally what happens is they show up three shows in and their crate is sitting outside of their booth for setup, and then they pack it up and it gets moved to the next location and then they just take it home with them for the last show. And that's a, I mean, that's a lifesaver for people that, you know, I mean, because you're literally coast to coast.

I mean, no one wants to drive that in their truck.

Ben Furimsky
00:17:13

Right, right, right. No, I mean, there's a Few people that sometimes do, you know, they just like to drive and don't like to fly. And then sometimes they'll work.

They'll work with a few of their buddies and be like, hey, I got a big van. I'll haul my, you know, give me some gas money. I'm going to drive to the shows anyway. And they kind of do their own little shipping thing eventually.

That even, you know, gets challenging for them because they run into a situation with a breakdown or something like that, that. That puts them into a situation that stresses them out. So, you know, with the semis, we. We run into that too, but.

But again, we're all in the same boat with it. So if there is a breakdown, you know, there's everybody sitting there. Well, well, we know our pro, you know, our stuff's going to arrive late.

We're all going to be here late together. So let's go get lunch and we'll come back and set up. So it is that. That is a great way to. To kind of, you know, make an analogy like a. Like a.

Like a rock tour. I mean, we. We do. We're in. We're all in it together. We're all hanging out together.

That's why we call it the show family, because we spend a couple of months together, basically full time, and everybody gets to be good, pretty good friends. But I don't, you know, I would. There's a few customers that will travel around and they go and it sounds. It's. It. They have a great time.

It sounds like an awesome thing to do. But they'll have like a group of guys and they go to a different event every year.

They may go to their home show, but then they pick a different one because they realize the differences in the shows or a speaker that they may. A celebrity they may want to see or something, you know, that's just different.

And every show is a little bit different, but there are, you know, core components that are the same. And they'll travel around and pick one and it's like a little mini vacation that they go somewhere or maybe tied in with something else.

Or we have people that travel for work and they're like, oh, I'm going to be, you know, they may.

They may know our show from New Jersey, but they're in Denver for work and you're like, hey, I'm going to stay the weekend and go to the show and see it there. So it's kind of cool.

And they may have a sense that, you know, the differences, but I don't would never expect a customer to realize, like, the logistics and the transportation, because we have exhibitors that don't even realize sometimes that we have multiple events.

I have no idea how they don't, but they, you know, like, they don't even realize that we have these multiple events because it's listed all in the same contract. But they've just.

They're just so used to doing their home event that they don't even realize that we have multiple events and they have no idea of the logistics behind it.

Marvin Cash
00:19:54

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I went back kind of preparing the questions for this interview, and I was shocked to see that you were on.

I've talked to your dad in between. But the last time you were on was in early January 2020, before COVID And, you know.

Ben Furimsky
00:20:08

Oh, wow.

Marvin Cash
00:20:08

Yeah, it's interesting. And it's. You know, the funny thing is you were mentioning earlier, I think probably you were saying that people were.

Had a tendency now to hold contracts because of COVID because they didn't want to, like, put money out and then have the show postponed. But, you know, I've seen changes just in kind of the way, you know, B2B shows as well as B2C shows have done.

You know, what are you seeing kind of on your end that are kind of, you think are going to be things that are going to kind of survive and change the way we do business kind of post pandemic?

Ben Furimsky
00:20:37

I mean, that's a great question. There has been no industry that was more affected by Covid than the events industry. I mean, I'm in, basically, I'm in the.

I'm in the business of bringing a large group of people together. And during the pandemic there, like, everybody was basically saying, don't go to large groups of people. So, I mean, I was.

I was fighting against, you know, everything there. You know, like, we were. We were proponents of health and we want. You want everybody to be safe.

And in fact, we always had, you know, those of us that run the full show circuit, there's always, you know, something that goes around.

And we were, we were hopeful that due to the pandemic and due to Covid, that we were going to see less of those people that are, like, talking to you and hacking and they're saying, oh, man, I'm super sick. And you're like, well, why are you here? Like, we're working and you're coming here super sick. We're, we're.

We're excited that this show is this important to you, that you Want to come see us when you're super sick, but you're getting us sick. And.

And there was always like, you know, the hopes, the hopes of what main may or may not go around every year as far as, like, you know, a sickness that might catch through the crowd.

And the, the funny thing is the year after Covid, the first year we returned to live events was literally the only year that I can remember in history that, that, that with our events that zero people said they got sick. Nobody said, I didn't talk to a single person said I got sick after X and X show.

You know, whether it's just a common cold, which, you know, that's typically what it is to. Or flu or anything like that. Not a single person did. And we don't remember. No one also remembers people coming in sick.

So it did kind of set a better standard for people to not come if they're sick, you know. And, I mean, I think I've seen that change from people at work, but I was hoping, you know, it's good and bad.

I mean, the US Has a pretty hard work ethic and we'll go to. And also a poor policy for days off. So you kind of get forced into going to work when you do feel bad. You're like, I got too much to do.

I got to go to work. You know, I. I don't have enough days off, whatever it is. And people go to work and get their colleagues sick.

And I think now, and I hope now that that has improved, it's easier for people to say, hey, I'm sick. I'm not coming to work. But also on your recreation side, that. That should be considered. And, you know, so there, that's the positive.

We, we see less people, customers coming to the show feeling bad and getting us that are working sick because, you know that it's just that they're excited to go and we can't blame them for that. But I think, you know, their, their thought process is a little smarter on that now because they realize, like, hey, we're there working.

We got to go the next weekend. We're. We're working long hours, we're exhausted, we're vulnerable. And I think that that's. That's a positive that's come out of it.

The negative, you know, like I said from the start, is that they, you know, it was the whole thing with events and, you know, public events. What a lot of people don't realize is that, you know, aid and things like that that went out in the events industry.

We Got little to nothing or it's based off of your months of operation. So the, you know, the events that we had that when, when shutdown happened was just after we finished our events fortunately for the season.

So we got in 2020 and then things shut down, you know, weeks after our, you know, everything was like happening right as our shows were finishing and then things got shut down. So when the posted aid, it was based off of your revenue generated during the months when you were, when it was closed.

So we were making no revenue then. So we basically got no aid. And really as far as events go, Hollywood and Broadway were basically all that got aid.

So we work off of like this schedule that you talked about earlier. So it's is a perfect question you ask based off of how we operate.

And you know, I, I knew like restaurants and things like that that closed for a couple of months and got, you know, a million dollars and they came back and they were able to open up under restrictions.

We were, we're still like my hopes are to be recovered by next year and back into normal operating because not only did the, you know, the virus in health precautions for that affect us for two years after until people were feeling safe and it became more of a, less of a health threat than it once was for multiple reasons, but also the effects that we all saw with things like distribution, shipping, all of those things delayed things for over a year with, with our shows. I mean some countries still had restrictions longer. You know, companies were trying to catch up on production.

Some, you know, some companies made, you know, big errors no matter what your industry was. I had people at the shows that, you know, saw error.

You were talking about errors that were in their industry and saw fly fishing companies make it where you know, it might have been based off of sales and production forecasting that was almost impossible. Like I am still looking as far as forecasting.

I still look back to 2019 and 2020 because you can't really look at like what happened 2020, 2021 and definitely, you know, into 2022 after that. Maybe some things were starting to normalize.

But you know, if you were looking at your sales in 2021 to forecast 2022, I don't care what you were in, like it's going to be off because we weren't able to shop in person. We weren't, we weren't able to go try on clothes and you know, test our fly rods or pick up a reel and wind it in her hands.

It was like all online and also a lot of stuff was sold out because people couldn't get it. You know, and shops, some shops canceled orders because they thought it was going to be terrible.

And then other shops kept their orders in and sold everything and they couldn't get fill ins because sales skyrocketed in fly fishing because people wanted to be outside. But at the same time, you know, our side of the industry, we still, we couldn't operate.

We were closed down so we couldn't do an event or we had to do very strict precautions and you know, so it's taken a long time to, to basically recover. But you know, also in that like on our business side, it didn't change our expenses.

You know, if we had half the attendance, we just, you know, lost half of our revenue. That's all.

Marvin Cash
00:28:16

Yeah.

Do you see people, I mean, do you see people that you think have kind of gone digital as a result of COVID that aren't going to come back or are you kind of seeing that to kind of starting to get normalized as well?

Ben Furimsky
00:28:29

Well, I wouldn't say gone digital.

One, one thing that I feared and I, I do did see somewhat, I think a lot of this is returning because of almost what we talked about with the trips and things like that. And that was, that was some things that have come back. I've seen more lodges returning that kind of stepped away. But it's not necessarily digital.

It's just your marketing campaign, whatever it might be that you choose to market, you need to stick with it for a little while.

I mean, I tell anybody, especially a lodge, you need, you need to attend the show for three years to see your roi, because the first year you show up, it doesn't matter if you've been in business for 30 years as an outfitter or a lodge. Let's just pick, you know, Alaska, you've had a lodge there for 30 years.

If you're, if it's the first time that you attend our Atlantis show, it's going to be an advantage that you tell people that you've been in business for 30 years, they're going to have more faith in you.

But if you look at it realistically, how many people have, you know, 7 to 10 grand for an Alaska trip to throw down one weekend because they're just there and he met someone and he liked them. And also the time, you know, most of most people have their time, their vacation and their money booked for the next year.

They're, they're looking at places for maybe the following year and they're there having the exact communications that we talked about with Alpha that they'd already booked with in dialing in their trip.

I mean, I spent time, you know, when I did get free times at the show, I knew that I was doing this trip with set last week last year, and I was talking with them at the shows, getting the details. Okay, what do I need to, you know, get ready this year? What flies do I need? What gear do I need? You know, maybe even shopping for it at the shows.

Great opportunity to get to tie that all together and you can find the stuff that you need because they can, you can literally bring it over to them and like, does this look good? Yeah, that's great. You know, and, and then you can make the purchase, but the, the average person doesn't have that open.

So, you know, they're, they're meeting you. They might walk by and see a cool picture of like a Golden Dorado and be like, I've never seen that fish before. What is that?

You know, and then it's like in the, in the back of their mind. And the next year they come talk to you a little more seriously.

And then by year three, the money is saved up and the schedule is booked and you're booked, they're booking the trip. And that's just, you know, like most of, most of the people listening, I'll be like, yeah, that's, that's my schedule.

I can't do anything much faster than that. Especially if you tie in availability of a, of an outfitter because, you know, you may have a vacation in, you know, whatever month.

Like maybe you could go in November, but they're booked up fully this year, so you can't go this November. So you add all that stuff together. It takes a couple of years to really, you know, make the bookings.

And for, you know, a good outfitter, they know that in the good outfitters are the ones that are booked in advance.

So you see when you walk to the show and they tell you, well, we're taking bookings for, you know, this year 2025, they're like, we're taking bookings for 2026 or 2027.

It's because they're, you know, that's, that's how they operate and they understand it and they're, they're booked in advance and that's how they can do quality trips. And, you know, they've probably been in at the shows for years.

So you kind of got to get on the list and get your stuff taken care of in advance and have a, you know, you'll Have a great experience with those guys.

Marvin Cash
00:32:10

Yeah. It's interesting because I talk to people about it all the time and I think it's not an either or thing. I think it's an and thing.

I think you need to have an in person marketing campaign as well as a digital campaign.

Ben Furimsky
00:32:20

Yeah. And that's what I'm seeing come back. You know, the people are realizing like, look there, there's no more proven sales technique than in person.

Nothing, nothing has existed for longer than face to face sales.

You know, even if we go back to when it wasn't called a sale and it was just a barter and we didn't even have, you know, transactions that has been existing for that long, digital stuff is still evolving. It's so new that it's still evolving. I mean, for me, I call it a necessary evil.

It's just, it's more work that I have to do to achieve the same goals sometimes. And some things can do very well digitally, but they can fluctuate a lot.

They're like, let's just say, you know, for digital sales, for hard goods or even worse, soft goods. Most people are not shopping soft goods like a shirt for full retail price online. It's, you're gonna look for a sale and then the next sale comes up.

And there's very little like loyalty to brand loyalty when it comes to digital stuff. It's the next thing that pops up that it's in your feed that catches your eye. So.

But if you go face to face and you make a friend, you know, like I was saying, like you make a friend with an outfitter before you ever go, you've talked to him for three years at the shows and you're like, I like this guy. I consider him my friend.

You're going to book with him and you're going to go back and you, you know, and you, or you're going to shop from that guy that makes, you know, a reel that you like because you feel like you have a friend at the company because you've met them and you've shook their hands and you realize like whatever it might have been that you have, you know, you, you grew up fishing some of the similar waters or you know, they fished your home river before and you hit it off. So there's more loyalty that comes out of face to face interactions.

There's nobody that we're that's listening that isn't loyal to some sort of business, whether it's their favorite restaurant or their favorite brand. And it's, and it's more to it than just the actual product.

Every, every brand in fly fishing is marketing not their product, they're marketing the lifestyle in, in what we, what we do as fly anglers and what, what brings us together. That's what they market and that's what we are all about. That's what the show is about, bringing everybody together.

And, you know, some of our oldest and most loyal customers, as far as just attendees, what they come for is, is exactly that. They want to come see people. They don't even talk.

Like I know them now and you know, they come to the show and they're like, you know, I'll look for something new, I'll book a trip, I'll do something here. But the main reason I come is to see all these people that I've met over the years.

Marvin Cash
00:35:25

Yeah, it's always told people it's kind of like Woodstock for fly fishermen, right?

Ben Furimsky
00:35:30

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's just, you know, like, literally, like, you know, sometimes on opening day, there's a line of traffic down the road and people trying to get in and they're anxious. And I mean, you know, back in history, we actually had to change the hours of our Somerset show back when Edison was in Somerset because it.

The lobby got so full of people that there was no room. It was just basically a stampede. We had to let.

We had to open the doors before we were, before it was scheduled to open because there was no room for people.

And so the next year we were like, well, we're gonna have to just open an hour earlier and kind of keep it quiet and so, so we can deal with the crowd. And you know, that's, that's super fun part about it.

But when, you know, with the, with the branding to, to answer your question throughout, through that stuff is just my worry was that people, because they couldn't do our events, they needed to do something. And if they committed their dollars to something else, they just may not have had the dollars to work with us. And I did see that in some cases.

But like I said, most people are returning to the fact that they're like, this is a critical part. We've been around and proven for our events as well as just like I say, the face to face sales for longer than the Internet has existed.

So, you know, as far as digital sales, it's just an additional way to stay in touch with your customers. But most good exhibitors that are our event are building their online presence through meeting people at the shows.

They sign up for their list and those customers that sign up for someone's list at our events are already a better customer because they're choosing to sign up for your mailing list rather than you just acquiring their name through some means in there, like spam, you know, and, you know, delete that, Delete their contact info, which you can't get back then.

Marvin Cash
00:37:32

Yeah, and so, you know, you know, for, for folks that may not know. Right. You start in Marlborough in mid January and you end in Lancaster in mid. So you want to kind of walk people through the calendar.

I know you were saying too that, you know, you've lost some of your more flexible venues. So sometimes the order changes a little bit, right?

Ben Furimsky
00:37:49

Yeah, I mean, the order changes a little. We try to avoid that as best as possible. So sometimes people get upset with that. But it's, you know, it's a little beyond our control.

Ideally we would love the same weekend every year.

It's so much easier, so much easier on our side, like I said, where it switches around and I can't get the same dates for any venue for some reason, whether it be a remodel or things that people don't even know about. It immediately adds a month to two more work on my calendar, which is just like picking up an extra job for two months without getting any extra pay.

So it's, it's challenging and we, we try our hardest because we know that people like those same dates and keep it in their calendar but keep up to speed. You know, we always will, you know, announce those dates as soon as we can. But yeah, we started in Marlboro January 17th through 19th.

Then we go to Edison, New Jersey the following weekend, the 24th, the 26th, and then Atlanta, January 31st through February 2nd. That's, that was a two year, two day event and it's expanded to three days. Was that last year? I believe was the first year with three days.

And that one is, that one is back growing leaps and bounds because it was a new event only on its third year when Covid hit. So it's, it's really kind of.

It took a little effort to rebound it and it's, it's been sold out now for some time as far as exhibitor space and, and will be the biggest that it's ever been this year. We returned last year to Bellevue, Washington, February 15th and 16th, this next year.

Then we go to Denver, February 21st, 23rd, which, the last two years. I mean, this is some shake up from COVID and, and part of it is because of the size of the venue that we moved into.

But it's taken over the lead for the largest event in the world the last two years just by a little bit over at Edison.

So we hope to see our Edison people get back in, into the event and see if we can't rally and keep those two fighting for the title of the largest show in the world.

After that, we go back to California for February 28th through March 2nd in Pleasanton and then finish in Lancaster, Pennsylvania March 15th and 16th, which is a fantastic event and one of our favorites, not only because it wraps up the season, but it's just a, it's just a really nice town to, to be in to finish up. Not the biggest, but many exhibitors favorites.

Marvin Cash
00:40:40

Yeah. And it's super cool, right? Cause you got the convention center built onto the hotel, so it's about as self contained as it possibly could be.

Ben Furimsky
00:40:48

Yeah, yeah, it's.

I mean, I tell people for that one and like for exhibitors, if they're asking about them, like, look, you could walk, walk to your booth from your hotel room in your socks if you wanted.

Marvin Cash
00:40:58

Yeah, so. So I also know that you're always. You kind of have something new every year. You're trying to kind of work into the shows.

Is there something new for, for 2025 you want to share with folks?

Ben Furimsky
00:41:10

Well, you know, new is. Is challenging to kind of like pinpoint for our events because when I do something, it takes.

When you're only open two or three days for the year, it takes. When I do something new, it really takes three years to kind of get out there. So one, I appreciate you asking because that helps accelerate that.

But it's still like. We started a new women's event in Lancaster this past year and it went over very well.

And we've just actually posted online under, if you, if you look under our special events tab under the Lancaster show, we've got information on our women's networking social. And that's on Saturday. And it's a super fun event. You do have to register in advance. And that's, that's, you know, still new.

Last year was basically a test run, so I would call that new this year and a super, super fun event for the women involved in the show. And that went over really well. So we're looking forward to that really being an official, official thing this year.

There's always new speakers at every show, whether it be a featured speaker or destination theater. We always have new people presenting. We have Christopher Rounds who came to one or two shows last year over from Europe as a Casting demo.

I literally was looking at an email from him just before you, you rang me and he's going to be doing more shows and he was really, really liked by the crowd last year. So a casting professional that not everybody knows in the States, but he's not worth missing. Really entertaining and a fantastic presenter.

I would put him up there with the likes of Simon Gosworth. As far as an instructor. Very, very good with the crowd in professional and entertaining. It makes you laugh, it makes you learn.

So that's, that's the ultimate. Let's see, off the top of my head, we're going to have some new things. We're talking, we're going to add some industry talks at Denver and Edison.

That's new. And these industry talks are going to be open to the public.

So, you know, it might be something on digital marketing, it might be something on, you know, just how to build your brand or how to get into industry or insurance or whatever it might be for the fly fishing industry. But we're going to have that open to the public because I get people at our events all the time.

Every year I have several people and they're like, hey, I've got this idea or I'm opening a new shop or I'm opening a new lodge or I just started guiding how do I get involved in the event?

And if we have these things, these talks that are, that are helping people like this and they're just, it's someone that just has an idea in their mind. They may be able, able to attend a talk that's more industry oriented and business oriented. But we, they, they, they're going to get a head start.

It's going to help them get started in the industry. Or it simply might be something, you know, how to better merchandise. And they may have a completely different retail store.

And you're like, hey, why don't I go to this event? It's free and I'm here at the show and they go in and watch for a little while and they get some points. It helps.

Their business has nothing to do with fly fishing. So that's going to be a whole new category that we're adding to our theaters in Denver and Edison.

So that's going to be kind of a exciting new category that we're going to use to help our give value to our exhibitors because now they can come and not only make sales and profit for their business, but improve their business.

Marvin Cash
00:45:06

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense too with AFTA kind of moving away from their trade show to Give that same type of educational experience kind of on your platform to exhibitors. Right.

Ben Furimsky
00:45:17

Yeah.

And the added benefit is that, you know, most consumers have no idea who after is because it's a trade organization or those new business, you know, guys that I was just talking about where they have an idea. They're not going to find out about after until they've been in the industry. So this gives them an opportunity to, to learn.

And after will be at a number of our shows so they can, they can benefit by talking with them and attending some of these seminars and get it, get an earlier start. So we, you know, it's, it's a similar kind of idea and concept, but open to the general public. So we can, we can, you know, reach more people.

Marvin Cash
00:45:59

Yeah.

And so for our listeners who, you know, haven't had a chance to attend one of your shows, you want to give them a little bit of a feel kind of for the general format.

Ben Furimsky
00:46:08

Yeah, sure.

I mean, it's, it's similar to any, any public convention, whether it's just something that you've been to, like a consumer event where you have boosts and exhibitors. And I do get this question a lot.

So it's, that's really a great question for someone that, you know, takes it for granted because you're familiar with it.

But, you know, you walk into the show and you're going to be immediately overwhelmed because there's always more than anybody expects the first time, because you may, if you have attended events in fly fishing, it's probably smaller local events that you can see in a couple of hours. You can't see all of our event in the whole weekend.

It's just not possible because we have so many talks and so many presentations and so much going on that you can't even see all of it in a weekend.

So the best thing to do is look at the schedule of events, plan out talks or presentations that you want to see, and make sure you, you put those on your calendar, which is still going to be a challenge to attend. I mean, I always have be like, hey, I want to attend this one seminar today.

And then, you know, for me, I'm working, but even if I'm not, I end up talking to someone and enjoying myself and I'm like, oh, crap, I just missed the presentation I wanted to see because I was looking at this cool new product and I didn't even, didn't even realize.

So you try to attend the events that you want to see as far as like the theaters and in the theaters you know, we have are featured seminars that are more educational and informative done by, you know, top of the line professionals like Gary Borger or mentioned Christopher for the casting, things like that. So you can see these professionals and you get to see them one on one and even interact or ask questions afterwards.

So way better than just seeing even their own videos and things like that. Then we have destination theater that still. There's still educational, informative talks in that format. But it's based.

Most of the talks are, you know, you might go see a talk on fishing in Alaska or British Columbia or Argentina or wherever it is and you can go see a presentation.

You may even go see the presentation because you talked with an outfitter and they're like, well, I'm giving a presentation in an hour that will answer all these questions you're asking me with photos so you can go see the presentation and it gets you amped up. I went to see the, the talks by set while I was at the show because it just got me excited for something that I have planned already.

And you know, it gets you, it gets people very excited. Like all of us working or not, we go into it and it's.

It's like this event in the off season for fishing in most places and you walk out more excited for the season.

You're like excited for your new gear, you're excited for a new species, you're excited for your trip, you're excited for your local waters more than you would be normally. So that's really the best thing that you can get out of it is it's. It hypes you up for the upcoming year. You get to shop around.

There's continuous demonstrations by fly tires.

We also have featured fly tires, but there's fly tire we call sort of fly tires row in the show and there's a bunch of fly tires demonstrating all the time and whether, whether you're a fly tire or not, they're one of our favorite things to see. You can always learn something.

Or if you're not a fly tire, you might, it might spark your interest or just make you appreciate more what, what you're tying on the end of the line or learn about it a little more and how, how they work so you can make a better selection. You know, testing rods and product. It's the best opportunity for that. Because shops are limited in the brands they can carry.

Whether it's because of competition or square footage or whatever it is, it gives you the opportunity to test almost any rod all in the same venue.

All in our casting ponds, we'll have, depending on the size of the venue, there's one or two casting ponds that you can practice your casting with an expert, get some tips, or you can test products so you can, you know, get a chance to see what the, the rod feels like before you make a purchase and compare stuff while talking to possibly the, the rod designer or at the very least someone from that company. And you know, I get a lot of customers that say, well, they, they really love that because they don't feel like there's any sales pressure behind it.

Even if your, your salesman at your local shop is giving you the absolute best advice, the customer said, feels like in the back of their mind, well, maybe if they sell this brand, they, they're, they're getting a better margin or there's some sales incentive in, in, you know, even if that's not the case, when you talk to a manufacturer, they have, they're just telling you about their brand. I mean, it's not, there's no sales incentive for them to tell you what the design is or why to choose their rod.

They're just telling you about your, their rod. And then you go to the next booth and you talk about that brand.

And you can, you can choose based off of their best rod or you can choose off of the one that you end up making friends with. And, you know, it's kind of a neat process. So overall, that's basically the gist. And then there's special events like we just hit on that.

You know, you can look under our events. We have a film festival, the International Fly Fishing Film Festival, every Friday night. So that gives customers a reason to stay overnight.

All of our shows have a discounted rate that's open to the public for the hotels.

So you can make a weekend of it, which is really a, kind of a cool thing because, you know, you can go to the film festival, you can have dinner, you know, and it's late, you may not want to drive home, or you can have some, you know, a couple of cocktails and hang out.

But the cool thing is that when customers stay at the hotel, and I mean, you have experienced this, you've met friends that like, you start talking to someone and you don't even realize it might be Bob Clouser or, you know, or, or, you know, Jeff Curry or someone that you've, you, you idolize in the fly fishing world. And you're standing there talking to him at dinner and you're like, wow, this is awesome.

You know, so you get to Hang out with these guys after hours and make friends with them. And it's, it's really kind of a special thing to do that and just sort of mingle because we do hang out, like everybody hangs out at the hotel.

We don't disperse. I mean, people will go out for business dinners and things like that, but everybody's sort of mingling.

So it's, it's a very fun crowd to hang out with.

Marvin Cash
00:53:08

Yeah, it's funny you say that. It reminds me of back when the show was in Winston Salem buying Joe Humphries a beer and a hamburger. And I think he's my friend for life now.

Ben Furimsky
00:53:17

Yeah, for sure.

Marvin Cash
00:53:19

Yeah.

Ben Furimsky
00:53:20

That's awesome.

Marvin Cash
00:53:20

Yeah.

But, you know, one of the other things too is, you know, particularly now that the website's been revamped for a few years, you know, on the vendor front, you can get just as much information as you can about all of the talks and classes because, you know, one of the things I always do is go look at the floor plan and find the vendors that I want to go see. So I make sure I have that list with me, you know, when I go into the show.

Ben Furimsky
00:53:41

Yeah, find the ones that you want to go see.

But one of the, one of the things that's like special about the show is the things that you don't know you want to see because there's something you may have never heard about that could be, you know, it could be life changing for you.

I mean, it could be like I've had literally had customers that came in and bought some little, you know, knot tying gadget and they were like, this changed my world because, you know, my vision was going bad because I'm getting older or whatever it is, and I can tie my knots so much easier with this tool. Now that it changed my fishing.

I have more fun, you know, and, and that's, you know, those guys are so happy to bring that to them or just some information that makes them more successful for fishing.

So, you know, there's great things that you can find by searching and you should, you know, like if you have a list, a lot of guys do those things like that first day and then maybe day two they focus on seminars and then day three they try to find stuff that they don't know about. And that's why I say, like, you can't see it all in the day.

I mean, by all means, if you can only come for a couple hours and that's all you can make it's worth it and just be a little more Focused to have that plan. But if you can make it for the whole day, that's going to be a good experience.

If you can make it for multiple days, you're going to really come out, you know, a better angler and more excited. There's no doubt you're going to find stuff.

Marvin Cash
00:55:17

Yeah, and I always tell people too that, you know, if you can do the multi day thing and you want to have more in depth conversation is, you know, make that introduction on a Friday or Saturday. But Sundays are a great time to be able to spend more time with whoever it is you want to spend time with.

Tires or vendors or manufacturers, whatever.

Ben Furimsky
00:55:34

Yeah, I mean, I literally do that on my side. You know, the Sunday is the day that I go around and try to, you know, check in with vendors and stuff like that.

Because, you know, Sundays are always the slowest day in any kind of event you have, unless it's like the NFL because it's on Sunday. But in that, you know, and that's a factor with some of our shows.

You know, if we run into bad luck where there's a home team and a playoff game in the middle of the day on, you know, Sunday, it's going to hurt our attendance and there's not much we can do about that. But most of the time there's some vendors that have the game on at the show.

And you know, I always tell people, I'm like, hey, the customers that are here today are more serious because they're choosing, choosing to be here over watching the game. So, you know, they're more serious, serious customers. So, yeah, I mean, that's. You're right because Saturday can be a hustle and bustle.

A funny thing with just like psychology of people. I've seen multiple times in, in several of our shows where Saturdays get so busy that a bunch of people all tell me, you're like, this is too busy.

I'm going to come. I'm going to take Friday off of work and I'm going to come in Friday to beat the crowds and everybody does it.

And that next year Friday is busier than Saturday. And it's just funny how it, like it works like that.

Marvin Cash
00:56:54

Yeah, that's why you got to make a weekend out of it.

Ben Furimsky
00:56:57

Yeah.

Marvin Cash
00:56:58

Right.

Well, before I, before I let you get on with your day and make the magic happen for us in 2025, I can't let you go without asking for an updated ski report.

Ben Furimsky
00:57:10

I haven't even got to go. My kiddo went that on Sunday and said it was pretty Good. We had.

While I was in Argentina, we got a big snowstorm where it snowed over two feet in one day. So I'm actually still in the process of shoveling out from that when since I got back and plan to get going soon.

But it's, you know, good start for the season and hopefully we'll have good skiing this year and I hope I get some, get some time to enjoy that because I don't get much winter time fishing in.

It's, it's talking fishing, but it keeps me excited and get out to get some fresh air by going skiing and yeah, that's, I appreciate you asking that, but we'll, we'll have a good season either way.

Marvin Cash
00:58:00

Yeah.

It's interesting because I think the last time we spoke you were worried about where the good line was going to fall and if it was going to cover crested.

Ben Furimsky
00:58:06

But oh yeah, we must have had a storm tracking in and yeah, I mean that's, that's always the talk for us because we fall into a funny, funny place as far as La Nina and El Nino where we are in sort of south central Colorado because the track can hit us or it can go north of us or it can hit us or it can go south of us because they, they track, you know, they tend to track one way or another and we're kind of like right on the edge. So one, one, one cycle can be good for us, but so can the other cycle. And it just kind of depends on whether whether that track hits us or not.

Marvin Cash
00:58:50

Well, I hope you get more snow. And we won't say anything about the Penn State game last weekend. So I watched, I watched it.

Ben Furimsky
00:58:57

I watched it last, no, the night before last. When I got back, I tried to keep everybody from, I was telling everybody, don't say anything about the football. We'll watch it.

It was a good game either way. But there were some, there were some poor calls that I felt could have changed to change the game. And that was unfortunate for such a big game.

But it was a, it was a pretty exciting and good game. Should have been Penn State that won.

Marvin Cash
00:59:23

Yeah, there you go.

And so, and so if, so if folks want to, you know, find out more about the fly fishing show, follow you guys on social media, purchase tickets and sign up for classes. Ben, where should they go?

Ben Furimsky
00:59:36

Yeah, just go to flyfishingshow.com and then go to your show. Choose your show location off of that.

You know, we did miss, when we were talking about the general overlay the, the show you mentioned, the classes just now, but we also have private classes with limited attendance for to, for each. Whether it's your topic that you're interested in or just this, you know, the, the speaker.

Like we actually have at this time with the age of Joe Humphreys, we just do coffee with Joe. And I mean he's, he's such a character. It's just fun to hang out with him.

So you can't even miss that opportunity if you get a chance to sit down at a table with a limited group of people that depending on what the subject is, it's usually like 8 to 15 people. It includes your past to the show for the day.

So you can get to do, you know, private casting with Gary Borger or, you know, have coffee with Joe or you learn about Stillwaters with Phil Raleigh or whatever it might be and would then attend the show as well. So those are, those are a unique opportunity and actually a huge value.

The people that attend those usually book a class every year because they see the value in it.

Every year they're doing a different class, maybe even the same class year to year because they get so much out of it and they realize they, they change in their, you know, so personalized. They can come back the next year with questions on what they learned the year before.

So that's a pretty, pretty unique item that we have in the shows. And yeah, if you just, you can register for those, those you want to do in advance.

Those, you know, obviously something has a maximum of eight students can sell out pretty quickly. We have people that are sort of waiting for those to even appear on online to register.

Some will even email us in advance asking to see if they can reserve some space in it before they're even posted to public. So you want to be on top of those. You can buy your tickets in advance.

I have four film festival tickets are a good thing to get in advance and planning your schedule. But I just hope everybody can attend and you know, make some plans. The most time that you can get, work it out.

Hotel links are all on the site if you do want to join us for film festival and festivities afterwards. So it's all open to the public and, and everything should be on there. If you can't find anything, we're always open to help guide people through.

I mean that's, you know, that's the benefit of that we are a small business is. I mean, I answer or one of my staff members answers every email that comes in from anybody.

Marvin Cash
01:02:21

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Ben, I appreciate you taking an hour out of your, your workday to talk to me. And it's been fun.

And good luck kind of with the holidays and getting the, the canon prime for 2025. And I'll see you in Denver.

Ben Furimsky
01:02:35

Yeah. And don't forget, you know, for all your people, you can come see, see Marvin out there speaking for us as well.

Marvin Cash
01:02:43

Awesome. Well, listen, take care.

Ben Furimsky
01:02:46

All right. Talk to you soon.

Marvin Cash
01:02:48

Well, folks, we hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Don't forget to check out Trout routes pro@maps.troutroutes.com Use ArtFly 20, Art Fly 20 all one word to get 20% off of your membership.

Tight lines, everybody.